The world’s oceans have now experienced an entire year of unprecedented heat, with a new temperature record broken every day, new data shows.
Global ocean surface temperatures started breaking daily records in mid-March last year, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, fueling concerns for marine life and extreme weather across the planet.
“The amplitude by which previous sea surface temperature records were beaten in 2023, and now again in 2024, is remarkable,” said Joel Hirschi, associate head of marine systems modeling at the National Oceanography Centre in the UK.
Global average ocean temperatures in 2023 were 0.25 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous year, said Gregory C. Johnson, a NOAA oceanographer. That rise is “is equivalent to about two decades’ worth of warming in a single year,” he told CNN. “So it is quite large, quite significant, and a bit surprising.”
Scientists have said ocean heat is being supercharged by human-caused global warming, boosted by El Niño, a natural climate pattern marked by higher-than-average ocean temperatures.
The main consequences are on marine life and global weather. Global ocean warmth can add more power to hurricanes and other extreme weather events, including scorching heat waves and intense rainfall.
While natural climate variability will cause ocean temperatures to fluctuate, over the long term, NOAA’s Johnson said, we should expect them to “continue to break records as long as greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise.”